On dating cis men: A femininity of frustration
“As long as you don’t grow breasts,” he says to me, after telling him I want to start hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I tell him that I didn’t want them either. That was, until I had them.
“What does it mean to love someone?
What does it mean to change your body and watch your partner stop looking at it?
What does it mean to want to be with that person
no matter what,
even if your relationship will never be the same?
What does it mean to love someone
more than a friend,
to feel like
they’re family,
but to never
touch
the way you used to?
What does it mean to
feel
so romantically in love
with a person
but not want them
sexually
he asks himself
as he looks at my breasts,
my curves,
my feminized face
and I wouldn’t say
I’m not attracted to him
anymore,
but maybe it’s been hard
to see him
that way
when this is on my mind,
and I don’t want to make him
uncomfortable,
And I don’t want him to have to-
What if I never got rid of the part of me
that is angry
and upset
that you don’t want me
like that
anymore
and what if I was
selfish
and said that even though
you want me to find
others
who can give me
that attention
and validation,
that I still want
you
to be the one
who gives me
that attention
and validation?
But I don’t want to
make you
feel
these things
If you feel them
I want you to feel them
yourself,
not because
I want you to.
A friend of mine
asked me
if there were
any way
you and I
could be
sexual
again
And I told them,
no.
And I
felt
grief.
That to change
my body
and to become
a happier version
of myself,
I must also
watch parts of me
die?
In new life,
there is death.
In our love,
there is anger.
I am angry
and grieving
our love.”
I wrote this poem during the Fall 2024 semester for Ruth Behar’s Ethnographic Writing course. I was still very much married to my ex-husband, and debating if divorce was the right decision for us. For me. Eventually, we decided to divorce, and the loving anger I felt became outright anger. I no longer wanted to be with him, and I no longer wanted to see his face, hear his voice, or be in his life. I was frustrated, at the past two and a half years since I had started hormones, at the choice to marry at 20, at the fights we had over finances. I was frustrated that I shrunk myself for him, that I hid my femininity for so long so that I could be with him.
It is July now. It has been over six months since we made the initial decision to divorce. It’s still ongoing, but we have a very different relationship now. I am no longer outright angry; I am still frustrated at times, but that frustration may forever live in my bones. He’s one of my best friends. You don’t spend eight years with a person and just forget them overnight. He was family, is family, but we are no longer in love.
Since then, I started dating again for the first time in eight years.
I saw a man who made me feel wanted, made me feel like my body wasn’t disgusting. I made him cookies, and he ghosted me. I ate those snickerdoodles (his favorite cookies) and frustratingly listened to my sister tell me not to give so much to men right away.
I saw another man who told me he hadn’t been with a trans woman before, but he wanted to try new things out. We hung out, had fun, and I messaged him asking if he wanted to meet up again. He told me that he liked me, thought I was sexy, and didn’t want me to think things went badly, but that he would rather be friends. He continued to talk only about his interests and about cis women he was talking to until I eventually removed him as a friend on Discord out of frustration.
I saw another man who also told me he hadn’t been with a trans woman before, but he was attracted to them because he was pansexual. I dated him in a poly relationship for over three months and felt frustrated once again as he never touched me in that way and told me he was too stressed. He wasn’t too stressed to have sex with his other two partners though. When I told him about my frustrations, he told me that he couldn’t fulfill all my needs and that he just clicked with the others better. I broke up with him and bawled in my sister’s bathroom until two hours later, when I felt free and okay.
Dating as a trans woman sucks. Dating cis men sucks. I’m sure cis women can relate to that as well, but what was different for me was that I wasn’t granted the same femininity they are. My femininity was different, exotic, not good enough. I continued to feel frustrated for months, talking to my mom and my sister about how lonely I felt, and how I wanted to be with someone who made me feel validated in my femininity.
“You need to love yourself. Just give up on dating for now, and focus on you.”
Their words meant well, and I truly took them to heart, but I still was left with my frustrations. Friends all around me, trans or cis, were dating, hooking up, seeing people, and I dealt with radio silence on the apps, or man after man who wasn’t ready for a woman like me. I dealt with messages from men telling me I was really just a man. I dealt with chasers who wanted my femininity because they fetishized it. I dealt with a world that continues to misgender me and take away my rights. At times, I wanted to scream. At other times, I felt silly, like my frustrations were coming from a place of insecurity, or that I was being too emotional.
However, my frustrations are not from a place of insecurity, and my emotions are not too much. To think this about myself would be to subscribe to the patriarchal idea that as a woman, I should get over the flaws of men and control my emotions. Yes, there is insecurity. Yes, there is a lot of emotions. Yes, I need to focus on myself. But I can be insecure, feel all my feelings, focus on myself, and be frustrated that the world, that cis men, continue to harm and take advantage of me. All these things can be true, and I can be feminine and I can be angry. A femininity of frustration, if you will.
And maybe I should stop dating cis men. Maybe I should explore more with women, with other trans people, with anyone other than a cis man. Maybe I should give up on dating for now, but why should I have to?
For now, I will continue to take better care of myself, to focus on my own happiness and self-love, and to continue finding ways to survive and cope in a transphobic and transmisogynistic world. But I will also continue to feel frustrated.
“Sexy to somebody, it would help me out
Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house
And it’s just a little thing I can’t live without”
